Scale is Everything!

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I've made a bit of a realization about my puppet sizes, I've been working to the wrong scale the whole time...well not quite wrong, but wrong for the purpose of my animation. Allow me to explain a little better.

During the early planning stages, I've been studying all of the books on Harryhausen models, mainly The Art of Ray Harryhausen and the 2012 publication of Ray Harryhausen's Fantasy Scrapbook. In my observations, I've realized something, something so important it could have resulted in a very costly production. My project is referencing Ray's unfinished project "Evolution of the World" but, none of the photos of the puppets from this project have dimensions to show their scale, however, Ray's later projects, such as One Million Years B.C and The Valley of Gwangi, has the relevant information regarding such details. So I've been using those as my puppet scale reference points in how big and wide these puppets should be, because after all, if it worked for Rays puppets it'll work for mine...

This is were I made the discovery that the puppets from Evolution and the puppets from Rays later features are two completely different scales.
In looking at behind the scene photos and publicity photos of Ray working on both projects it dawned on me the puppets Ray was animating in Evolution are much smaller in scale compared to the puppets say on One Million Years.
Evolution of the World Triceratops
One Million Years B.C Tricreatops
As you can see the Triceratops head from Evolution fits perfectly in the palm of Ray's hand, yet the head of the later Triceratops puppet in his hands is larger, and following a visit to the Valence House Museum in March for the exhibit Dinosaurs, Harryhausen and Me, I can now confirm the puppet scale of the Styracosaurus is in fact much larger. The size difference however, may not be a huge jump, but it's enough that can be noticeable if both models were placed side by side.

So why is it important that I discovered this difference in scale? Well, in Evolution, as well as many other projects from Ray's early period, he animated within sets, some of which would be quite extensive in size giving the illusion of depth and perspective.
"Hansel and Gretel"
Ray very likely had a strong understanding of the importance of scale from his diorama models he made as a child making sure all the elements, from the model itself to the vegetation to the tree and backgrounds, were all in perspective. Whilst in his feature film productions, the only thing he ever needed to animate his puppets against was an animation table and a rear projector screen, very rarely would a miniature set be required unless it had to interact with his creatures. 
"It Came from Beneth the Sea"
But why is it important, surely you can just make one puppet and build everything around it? Well , the first thing you need to understand about animating on a set is planning how big it will need to be, for some people, such as myself, they find it had to visualize the size of something unless they can compare it to something physical, so by simplely building a puppet in 1/6th scale and building your set, set environment around said puppet, you will find the space you need is much greater than what you originally imagined. 
"Corpse Bride"
If you look at behind the scene photos of productions like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, you can see how large the most of the sets need to be to accommodate the size of the puppets, The larger the set, the larger the space and the more lights you need to accommodate it. Granted that most of the sets were built to house more that 4 or 5 characters in any given shot but by planning ahead the set designers could make sure everything was designed around the characters without going over the top.

"Evolution of the World"
The advantage of having smaller puppets is that it makes your set size and budget costs much lower but you have to make sure your props and set elements are the correct size if you are using found objects or making them from scratch. However, you don't want to go too small as this may hinder your animation quality if you want to have smooth movements, its not impossible to do, but it may mean that you need to have more patience when watching your playbacks.

If you would like to learn more about the early work of Ray Harryhausen you can find pictures, information podcasts and event updates via The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation online accounts.
Official Website- http://www.rayharryhausen.com/

Comments

  1. David Prus23 May 2018 at 07:42

    Have you made a decision on the size of the set yet? I suspect another reason Harryhausen went for smaller models in Evolution wasn't just the cost, but they were never meant to interact with humans-from O'Brien's The Lost World forwards, you have large detailed dinosaur models simply because they share shots with human characters. I would still argue for larger models, as I would assume you would also include smaller animals around the size of humans. Even if Gwangi didn't have to fight cowboys, the model would still have to be large in order for a reasonably detailed Ornithomimus, for example.

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